


Murmuration

by quickmanifyouloveme



Series: Ornithology [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Bruce Wayne is Dead, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Damian Wayne’s Parent, Father/Son Incest, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason is coming for Tim's Best Brother in Gotham award, Past Incest, Past Underage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, This is fortunate for him, Trans Dick Grayson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26721208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickmanifyouloveme/pseuds/quickmanifyouloveme
Summary: “You really think you’re our mom, don’t you?”Dick chewed on the inside of his lip. “Well.”Trying to process his relationship with Bruce, Dick goes to his first therapy session. Later, he and Jason eat shitty junk food and talk about their brothers.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Ornithology [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922497
Comments: 12
Kudos: 284





	Murmuration

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted Dick to be happy; some of y'all wanted Dick to be happy; my best friend wanted Dick to be happy. Here we are, a reprieve! This is set about two months after Tim and Dick's conversation in Fledgling. To recap: Bruce is "dead," the public thinks he's alive, don't worry about Jason's legal dead-or-alive status it's okay I promise.

“I want to be here, but there’s a lot that I can’t tell you.” Dick plucked at the frayed edges of his flannel, a somber green and black plaid run through with streaks of white. He’d had it since he’d moved to Blüdhaven and wanted to buy his own clothes for the first time, and it came in handy in situations like these, where Dick needed to pick and twirl and tear. “I’m sorry. I guess that kinda defeats the point of therapy, huh.”

“I don’t think so.” Dr. Elise Drummond pulled her bracelet, an elastic string of raw red jade pieces, from her wrist and rubbed her umber thumb over the irregular crystals. Dick watched her thumb move slowly, slowly, retreading old ground. “I expect you to keep things to yourself.”

“Because I’m Dick Grayson?”

She smiled, the skin around her brown eyes wrinkling with thin crows’ feet. Her face, softened with age, reminded him of Alfred’s. More expressive, less knowing, but looking at her comforted him. “Because you’re a person and everyone deserves their privacy, even from their therapists. Whatever you tell me is all I know. People find a lot of power in that.”

Dick nodded and unraveled a thread in his flannel’s cuff. Dr. Drummond’s bracelet clinked as she turned it and began rubbing a different crystal. He found himself watching her hand move and mirroring her, slowing his fingers and plucking more gently.

He asked, “You fidget with things, too?”

“I do,” she answered. “It helps me think. I’m guessing it also helps you think.” Dick nodded again. She watched him for a moment; he realized his knee had started bouncing and stilled himself. “If you’d like to get up and walk, you’re free to. There’s no need to stay seated.”

“Um.” Dick let out a sharp, nervous laugh. “Maybe later. I don’t want to tread a hole in your carpet or bump into your furniture.”

Dr. Drummond raised an eyebrow, laid her bracelet on the mahogany coffee table between his sofa and her chair, and pulled the table closer to herself. “I can move things out of the way. This is your session and your space.”

“O-Okay.” Dick bit his lip, felt the energy strumming through his legs, and peered around the room. The leaf green walls were accented with wispy clouds, one every few inches. A burgundy rug covered the amber oak floor between them. On the far wall stood two bookshelves: one with dense, expensive-looking textbooks, the other with thin children’s books, thicker YA novels, someone’s memoir, a joke book or two. Dick imagined the muffled thunk of his shoes on the rug giving way to patters on the wood as he paced.

He decided, “Maybe next time. Or if I get worked up. Right now I’m too tired.” Wincing as he heard his own words, Dick braced for the reprimand.

“Alright.” Dr. Drummond picked her bracelet back up and stretched it between her fingers, but her eyes remained focused on Dick. They sat in silence for a second. Dick’s shoulders started to climb up to his ears.

“Dick, is it wrong to be tired?”

“No.” He corrected his posture, remembering Bruce’s hands on his back and shoulders during training, his _hands_ — “Everyone gets tired, it’d be silly to say it’s wrong.”

“That’s true. Is it wrong for _you_ to say you’re tired?”

“Ah.”

Dr. Drummond’s eyes creased in another smile that was not quite motherly, but warm. She waited; Dick got the feeling that she’d be willing to wait for a long, long time for him to speak. Never judging, always open.

He didn’t want to keep her waiting, so he pushed on. “I have—an intense job, and intense hobbies. My family does them together, so I don’t want to…” He lowered his eyes to his sleeve and pulled at the threads keeping the button sewn on. “I don’t want to tell them they can’t rely on me because I’m too tired that day.”

Crime never sleeps. Batman doesn’t get a day off. Robin learns how to fall asleep in any position and any environment, but he also learns how to wake up quickly and stay awake. A lapse in Robin’s attention or judgment means his partners could die. His brothers could die. His _dad_ could die, again—

“Don’t they rely on one another as well as on you? And you on them?”

“I mean.” Dick thought of Damian and Jason’s mutual derision; Tim and Damian’s blood feud that Dick had only just deescalated to sharp words and sharper glares; Jason’s bitterness toward Tim and Tim’s noxious mixture of guilt, anger, and pain. They’d all come together for _him_. “I’m the oldest, so my brothers rely on me the most.”

“What about your father?”

_He’s not my. He never was my. I had a family but I was an orphan because he didn’t. Does Daddy count._

“I have to tell you something,” Dick blurted out. The words fell out of his mouth like baby teeth knocked loose by Two Face’s fist.

Dr. Drummond inclined her head and laid her palms on her linen-covered knees. Neither defensive nor threatening. “Okay. I want to hear it.”

 _Do you?_ Dick gave up on his flannel and laced his fingers together and squeezed until his knuckles creaked. _She does. She’s here for me. We’re both here for me._

_I only have to say it for the first time once._

“I was. Me and Bruce, we were—” Dick couldn’t look at her as Bruce’s name filled the room like choking smog. Despite the pollution, he took a deep breath. “I was in love with him. For what felt like my whole life.”

A soft hum. She didn’t interrupt. He wiped his damp hands on his knees and then patted his thighs in a twitchy rhythm. 

This was the hardest thing to say aloud, to confess to this stranger with a psychology degree and fathomless brown eyes and faintly wrinkled skin and a watchful silence. “And he, when I was seventeen, we started having sex. We were—together for two years. I think maybe he loved me back.”

Fabric shuffled. Dick dragged his eyes up and saw Dr. Drummond lean forward and plant her forearms on her knees. Her face was still receptive and patient, but the muscles in her cheeks and neck tensed.

Dick forced himself to look her in the eye as he whispered, as quietly as he had his hellos to Bruce in the fragile hours of the night, “And Tim thinks— _I_ think—he raped me.”

Jokes and bluffs and reassurances pooled on his tongue, but he swallowed them all. He was so, _so_ tired of cradling the weight of his and Bruce’s relationship in his own arms, unable to put it down or pass it off to someone else—or even show it. Let it be obvious, self-evident. Let it tumble onto the floor and scratch the sparkling marble. Let people jeer and weep and puke like they had at the Flying Graysons’ last performance.

Dr. Drummond made sure not to touch him, but she did lay a hand on the table between them and stretch closer. Dick tugged his flannel tightly around his core and wished someone were there to hug him. She murmured, “Thank you for telling me. I don’t take your trust lightly.”

He jerked his head up and down and pulled his shaking knees to his chest. “I just. I needed to say that.”

“I’m glad you listened to yourself and your needs. Do you do that often?”

A laugh cracked his ribs. “No. Um. Aren’t you… Aren’t you going to say that it wasn’t really love?”

Dr. Drummond pulled her hand back to her lap and started rubbing her bracelet again. “You said you were in love, so you were. No matter how you feel when you reflect upon the past now, it doesn’t change the person you were and the love you felt then.” Dick bowed his head; heat tickled behind his eyes.

“But,” she continued, “I don’t know and can’t know how your father felt about you. Only he knows that.”

“Well. He never said he loved me,” and that still _hurt_ , “but he asked me to marry him.” Disgusting. Twisted. Gnarled. Poison. “I didn’t say anything for a long time, but eventually I said yes.”

He rubbed his eyes and coiled himself tighter. Through fuzzy ears he heard her ask, “Why did you say yes?”

Dick felt like he was fumbling his own heart, that it was a second from slipping to the ground and bursting open. “I-I don’t know. Marrying your dad, that’s like one of the worst things someone could do, right?”

“I disagree. I think a man marrying his son is the worst thing he could do.”

Dick’s throat clicked as he swallowed. “I wasn’t ever really…” His feet dropped to the rug and started tap-tapping.

Dr. Drummond stood up, rummaged in a box near the bookshelves, and returned with a pink ball of plush yarn. She laid it on the table in front of him and said, “We don’t have to keep talking about this, Dick. It’s only your first session. If you agree, we’ll have a long time to work through it.”

“Okay.” He gave her a weak smile and picked up the yarn. It felt like Damian’s freshly showered hair, or Alfred-the-cat’s fur. It unspooled easily in his hands, its rose dye a sweet shock against his warm, dark skin. “Okay. I want to talk about something else.”

She smiled back, gentle and genuine. “Alright. Tell me about what you’re going to do after our session, something nice.”

“Oh!” He perked up, remembering. “One of my little brothers is gonna pick me up. He said we’ll hang out for a while.”

“Which one?”

“Jason.” Dick spun the yarn around his fingers and started tying knots. “He’d complain if he heard me call him my ‘little’ brother. He’s only twenty-one, but he’s so tall now.”

“What are you two going to do?”

He shrugged. “No clue. It was his idea; he and Timmy basically arm wrestled to decide who would drive me back.” More roughly than Dick liked, but they were all making progress.

Dr. Drummond chuckled and mirrored him as she fiddled with her bracelet. “What about your third brother?”

“Damian? He’d drive me if he could. He’s only ten.” A smile snuck onto Dick’s face as he pictured Damian’s wrinkled nose and pinched lips when Dick broke the news that Robin may be able to drive the Batmobile, but Damian Wayne couldn’t drive the Mercedes.

“That’s quite the age difference.”

“Damian was a surprise, one that I’m grateful for.” He weaved the knotted yarn between his fingers and slid it through, focusing on the cloudy texture accented by bumps. “He’s so strong, but I can tell that he still needs me. It makes me feel…” Dick sucked on his cheek and looked up at the ceiling. “Useful. Important. Protective. Like I _can_ protect him, because as strong as he is, I’m stronger. It’s. It’s nice to love and nurture someone.”

“I’m glad you get to experience that.” Dr. Drummond tilted her head. “And he lives…?”

 _Oh_. “He lives with me,” Dick rushed to say, “in an apartment in Gotham.” He pictured Damian in his Robin colors and melted. “He can be rude and kinda superior sometimes, but he’s sweet with animals. He’s a great artist, too; I can tell that he’s proud of the sketches he shows me, even if he pretends it’s no big deal.” Dick remembered the crosshatched studies of the kitchen, Damian’s own bedroom, the view from the penthouse at night—all done with care and the tiniest hint of affection.

Dr. Drummond nodded and asked, “What about Tim and Jason, where do they live?”

“They live on their own.”

“Okay.” The tension around her eyes didn’t quite relax, but she sat back and smiled. “I’ve gotten to know Damian. Tell me more about Tim and Jason.”

Here was his favorite thing to do, no matter how pissed they’d been at each other over the years. Dick took his battered wallet out of his back pocket and unfolded a miniature photo album. He showed her a picture he’d taken of Tim, age fourteen, when Dick had snatched his camera and followed him around the manor, snapping pictures while hiding behind shelves and hanging upside-down from beams. Tim’s hair had been hilariously long and fluffy. He was looking out the sitting room window, like a poet contemplating the sublime beauty of his own backyard.

“Timmy’s a teenage genius. It seems like he knows something about everything, and if he doesn’t know something then he researches for hours until he’s an expert.” Tim knew so much about Barbie movies now. “He could easily be an egoist, and sometimes he gets lost in his own head, but he’s really kind. Loyal, too.”

Flipping through, he showed her a few more of Tim in various states of joy, annoyance, exhaustion, admiration, relaxation. She hummed and laughed, and Dick felt something in his core unravel like the soft, soft yarn lying in his lap.

Soon he came across his sparse pictures of Jason. He lingered on a winter scene: the two of them in puffy jackets, calf-deep in snow, holding skis. Jason barely came up to his shoulder. Snow dotted his hair and made him look smudged, younger. Dick wanted to squish his cheeks and slap a kiss on his forehead.

“He was a cute kid,” Dr. Drummond mused. Dick chuckled.

“He was adorable. I didn’t get to see a lot of him back then. Now… Now he comes to see me pretty often. Since I realized—everything.” He cleared his throat and left his wallet on the table, Jason still grinning up at them. “His heart’s always been in the right place and he’s always been stubborn about following it. He’s never given up, no matter how much he’s been through. And he loves so, so deeply; I don’t think he realizes how much. I think a part of him believes everyone else’s well is deeper and he’s the shallow one.”

Shaking his head, Dick began to untie the knots he’d made, careful not to fray the yarn. “He’s smart, too. Loves literature, loves old movies, really good at reading people and spoiling stories for himself. He used to write in a little leather notebook when he was a kid. Maybe he’s still writing—I hope so.”

Dr. Drummond ran her thumb over the picture. “It sounds like your brothers are coming together to support you.”

A haze of warmth washed over him, like summer fog. “Yeah, they are. I’m not…” He clicked his tongue as he thought. “Things are still difficult. But I’m really, really happy to have my family again.”

The fine lines around her eyes and mouth deepened again as she smiled. “And I’m happy you came to see me. You already know that you don’t have to do everything on your own.” A stitch caught in his chest at that. “I’d like to be one of the people who helps you.”

 _Help_. Something he offered to almost everyone he’d met; something people rarely offered to him.

“I… I’d like that, too.” He used his thumb to pin the yarn to the inside of his wrist and spun it around, as if his arm were a spindle. He loved its softness; he loved how the pads of his fingers were just sensitive enough to feel the grains of each thread that some hand had braided together; he loved the knowledge that someone must have spent hours spinning all this out of something raw and fragile. Imagine having that much time to devote to something bloodless.

Gesturing to him, Dr. Drummond said, “I can set out that yarn for you every session. It’ll be Dick Grayson’s dedicated ball of yarn.”

Dick grinned. “I’ll hold you to that. If anyone else messes with it, I’ll know.”

“I give you my word.” She slipped her bracelet back onto her own wrist. “For now, I think it’s almost time for you to meet up with your ‘little brother,’” she said with a slight smirk. Dick nodded, unwound the yarn, and set it on the mahogany table.

“Thank you for talking to me.” He felt lighter—like the first time he’d put on Nightwing’s suit after laying down Batman’s cape.

“Thank you, again, for trusting me.” Dr. Drummond reached out and shook his hand; she didn’t blink at the scars that rasped against her palm. “Stay safe.”

-

As soon as Dick slid into the passenger seat of the stupid luxury car Jason had chosen, he turned to his brother and wrapped him in a rib-creaking hug.

“Whoa, hey, Dickie!” Jason’s laughter was stiff with disbelief. “It was only an hour, dude. Unless your shrink trapped you in some kind of time vortex situation.”

Dick hummed _nuh-uh_ and scratched his nose on Jason’s chest. After a moment, Jason relaxed enough to lay his wide palms on his brother’s back. They stayed like that a while longer, until Jason patted his shoulder and pushed him into his own seat.

“Save some for Damian. I gotta drive.”

Dick toed off his sneakers and sat with his legs folded. Jason merged onto the cramped Gotham streets and drove toward the setting sun. He bitched, “You’re gonna stink up the car.”

Dick gave him a winning grin. “It’s not your car.”

“Is too!”

“Is not. Technically, it’s Tim’s now.” Dick planted his disgusting, stinky feet on the dashboard and folded his arms behind his head. He peeked over and snickered at Jason’s scrunched nose.

“Whatever,” Jason grumbled. “You’re gonna ruin my appetite.”

“Yeah? Are we getting dinner?”

“We’re certainly getting _food_.”

Soon enough, Jason pulled into a parking lot shiny with neon lights and puddles of grease. “Junk food? Are you trying to break Alfred’s heart?”

Jason shut off the engine and smirked at his brother, eyes glinting with that particular slyness and mischief that only conspiring siblings knew. “I won’t if you eat your burger and keep your mouth shut.”

Getting his wallet out anyway, Dick warned, “He’ll smell it on us as soon as we step out of the car.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Jason snatched some bills out of Dick’s hands. “But isn’t it worth it? Two guys bein’ dudes, hangin’ out in a fancy car, eatin’ like shit?”

Dick laughed. “What’s better than this?”

“Nothing!”

He watched as Jason pumped his fist in the air as he walked away, looking like an overgrown Judd Nelson. Letting his head thunk against the headrest, Dick breathed in the mottled scent of metal, cigarette smoke, and, yes, stale socks. It was a welcome replacement for the sleek sandalwood and elderflower of Brucie Wayne’s cologne. Most of the luxury cars still smelled like champagne-bright nights—a tiny gold band on the wrong finger that barely clinked against chilly crystal flutes—a jealous tongue that licked his teeth and laved down his throat in the car’s steamy dark—

Jason had probably smelled it all when he’d first climbed into this car. Maybe his own memories had slammed the air from his lungs; maybe he’d even smoked a cigarette or two while waiting for Dick in the parking lot.

How Jason didn’t see the depths of his own kindness, Dick didn’t know.

Jason came back with a grease-damp bag of food and a handful of coins that he flicked at his brother. Dick laughed and batted him away. “Yes, fifty cents, thank you.”

“Hey, it’s all Tim-Tam’s money now.” Jason started digging through the bag like Titus through a mound of crunchy leaves. “You don’t know what kind of jank ass stipend he’s gonna give us.”

“I bet he’ll give me more.”

Jason snorted and shoved a sleeve of fries under Dick’s nose. “As if Damian’s not gonna give you half of his when he finally gets tall enough to see over the kitchen counter.”

“Just you watch, he’s gonna hit a growth spurt any day now.”

“I bet he uses a booster seat when you let him drive the ‘mobile. Or a stack of books.”

Dick jerked around to peek out the windows. “Oh, God, Jason, I think he heard you. I can see him now, he’s swinging toward us—”

Jason’s fist bonking the crown of Dick’s head startled a laugh out of him. “Don’t even joke about that. I swear to God, I see that sharp little knife poking through his pocket every time I get close to you.”

“Aw, he’s just protective.” Dick unwrapped his shitty burger and slipped its shitty pickles onto Jason’s napkin, who immediately popped them into his mouth. In repayment, Jason flopped two limp tomato slices onto the top of Dick’s burger. They ate in silence for a while, just goopy, awful tongue clicks and moist smacks that would’ve made Tim strangle them.

Eventually, Dick scrunched his wrapper into a ball and threw it at Jason’s face. “What did the kids get up to while I was gone?”

Dryly, “Tim burned down the manor and Damian threw all the Batman suits in a vat of acid.”

Jason chortled when Dick slapped his stomach. “ _Jay_.”

“They were _fine_ , mama bird.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Damian passive-aggressively did his homework and watched Tim play Fourth Night or whatever.”

Dick could just imagine Damian, still in his couture cashmere-blend school sweater and emerald tie, scowling as Tim “was permitted undeserved juvenile recreation.”

Dick insisted, “I know you know it’s Fortnite. You’re twenty-one, you can’t pretend to be old yet!” _God, he’s only twenty-one_. “That right is reserved for me and Alfie.”

Jason clicked his teeth just like Damian. Dick wanted to pin Jason’s face between his hands and ask if he knew how adorable and unsettling it was that he and Dami had started to rub off on each other. “You’re determined to take everything from me, including my right to be a surly old fuck.”

Giving in to the ever-present urge to ruffle his brothers’ hair, Dick rubbed his palm on Jason’s tousled head and quipped, “Eldest sibling’s privilege, baby bird.”

Jason flipped on the radio to some random station—00s R&B, it turned out—and cranked the volume until Dick clamped his hands over his ears and kicked at Jason’s face with his pungent socks. Dick cackled when he actually poked Jason’s cheek with his toe and earned a splutter and glare.

“God, you’re the _worst_ ,” Jason whined. 

Dick stuck out his tongue and turned down the volume. “Back at ya.”

They sat in peace for a couple minutes, turning the radio to a different station and allowing the chatter to fade into background noise. While they were eating, Gotham had cloaked herself with black clouds and let rain patter the asphalt, the thin grass, the hood of the car. Dick remembered cold water chilling his domino mask and watched his brother.

It was nice to see Jason like this: quiet, relaxed, well-fed, smiling like the ne’er-do-well he was meant to be instead of scowling like a soldier. He’d spotted the gun strapped to Jason’s ankle when Jason had gotten out of the car, but Dick didn’t mind. Jason was alive.

Jason cocked his head and looked back at him, his green eyes sharp in the dampened dusk light. “You really think you’re our mom, don’t you?”

 _Tired of lying. I’m tired of lying._ Dick chewed on the inside of his lip. “Well.”

“ _Jesus_ , Dickie.” An old nervous habit, Jason rolled his wrists and cracked his knuckles. The pops echoed like bullets in an alley. His eyes squinted and flashed. Dick flinched and something thick and scorching poured from his core, making him burst out: 

“Don’t judge me. I could have been Damian’s! I almost was!”

_Fuck._

Dick started shivering, his hands curling into unsteady fists, his knees thudding against the dashboard as they jerked, his jaw closing tighter than fingers around a throat. He slammed his eyes shut and tucked his chin into his chest. Anything not to look at Jason, who probably wanted to give him the third fucking degree.

Jason didn’t say anything. Dick could almost hear Jason’s throat vibrate with subvocal sounds, words he couldn’t help thinking but kept inside.

Dick grated out, “We’re not getting into that right now.” Fabric rustled beside him as Jason nodded. Dick pushed out a slow, shaky breath. He focused on inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, until he could say, “I just, I wasn’t ever really his son.”

He opened his eyes and, still shivering, managed to meet Jason’s. “Then all that happened, and I had a—a different role, and when you guys came it was hard not to feel responsible for you.” Jason, a gremlin of a thirteen-year-old with an honest grin and so much pride; Tim, a lonely boy with a keen eye and an overflowing, underused heart; Damian. _Damian_.

Dick murmured, “So, yeah, maybe I’m your mom.”

Jason softened. Dick watched his muscles from neck down tense and relax. His breathing slowed to match Dick’s, his chest rising and falling in a way that Dick still savored. Jason cracked a wry grin and shoved at Dick’s shoulder.

“You think you’re our mom-brother?”

Dick shoved back harder, teasing half a genuine smile onto his face. “Brother-mom.”

“Double the nagging.” 

He flicked Jason’s nose and tugged on his ear just to hear his brother squawk. “Double the fun!”

“Sure,” Jason scoffed while slapping his hand away. He grabbed Dick’s wrist and held it in a firm, warm grasp. Stroking his thumb over Dick’s pulse, Jason said, “Listen, dude, you’re _not_ my mom. Or Tim’s. Maybe it’s okay that you and Damian have a weird brother-dad and brother-son relationship, but Tim and I are fine. Take a load off those shoulders. You’ll lose your graceful physique.”

Dick let Jason’s words wash over him like the wind at the top of Gotham’s highest buildings, cold and clear and almost clean. He smiled at Jason and sprawled over his lap, careless of the gear shift digging into his back and the brown bags crunching beneath him.

“Aw, Jaybird. You care about me.”

Jason let go of Dick’s wrist and laid his hand on Dick’s sternum. “You’re squishing the fries.”

“It’s fine, I’ll just mash ‘em up in my mouth and baby bird ‘em to you.”

“ _Ew_.”

They lay quietly for a while, enjoying the peace of each other’s company. Dick was a second away from snoring when Jason pushed on his shoulders. Dick flumped back into his own seat. “C’mon, Cinderella, I gotta take you back before you turn into a pumpkin.”

He let Jason drive most of the way to the penthouse before he asked, “Are you gonna come in with me?”

Jason’s hands clenched and relaxed on the steering wheel. “I think ‘the kids’ have seen enough of me today.”

“Sounds like no one died.”

Jason shrugged. “Doesn’t mean no one tried to kill each other.”

“Jay.” Dick laid a hand on Jason’s bicep and studied his brother’s face. There was _something_ there, some longing that wasn’t entirely Dick’s own. “Please.”

Jason sighed through his teeth and swerved to avoid a puddle. “Yeah, okay. But don’t get upset when you see that I’m Alfie’s favorite.”

Dick laughed. “I think Cass is his favorite, actually.”

“She doesn’t count, she’s everybody’s favorite. He tells _me_ where he hides the Christmas cookies.” His broad chest puffed up with pride. “And he lets me pipe the ghosts on his Halloween cookies.”

Dick held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I see your point. I do like your ghosts.”

“Thank you,” Jason said with Al Ghul-Wayne primness.

Minutes later, just as the rain began to fall in sheets and dance on the hood of the car, they arrived. Jason drove through the penthouse’s civilian garage and into the second Batcave’s hangar bay. (Or as Tim called it, The Batcave… 2!!)

The Cave was empty, everyone probably eating their own dinner upstairs. Jason pulled the keys out of the ignition and unclipped his seatbelt, but he paused when Dick cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the silt that was building up.

“Jay…” Dick found the fraying threads on his cuff and started plucking them again. “Do we have to get into what I said earlier?”

Since his talk with Tim, all the old lies and secrets had morphed into a scorching chunk of coal in his gut—but some things were impossible to say. His core still throbbed, all these years later.

Jason watched him until Dick looked up to meet his eyes. Shaking his head, Jason said with deliberate nonchalance, “Nah. Do I look like your therapist?”

Warmth zipped through Dick and drew half a smile. “Considering you’re not Black, a woman, or in your early 60s, then I don’t think so.”

“Exactly. So chill out.” Jason’s fist thumped his shoulder with enough force that Dick swayed in his seat, but Dick could see him chewing on the inside of his cheek. He did that a lot as Robin, working his jaw through patrol so that he’d shine a bloody grin at Dick when he saw Nightwing on the streets.

“But?” Dick prompted. Easier to talk it out now than to let Jason gnaw his cheek to pieces during some of the only time they had together.

“But.” Jason closed his eyes and started drumming on the steering wheel. “When are you gonna tell Damian?”

Every muscle in Dick’s body locked up at once, so quickly that pangs pricked his stomach. He hissed out a slow breath.

He imagined Damian, knife-eyed and straight-backed, screaming at Dick that he was _revolting, unfit, weak_ —begging Dick to take back his lie—or worse, collapsing into a ball and trembling and breaking into rib-snapping sobs at the realization that his father was—was a—

Dick yanked at a thread on his cuff until it snapped.

With a thick tongue he said, “…He’s too young.”

Jason kept his eyes screwed shut. Dick watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “He’s been through a helluva lot. More than any of us at his age.”

And that fucking _burned_ , knowing how Damian had suffered and let his natural kindness wither away for the sake of earning his mother’s pride. Dick wished not for the first time that he’d met Damian earlier, had gotten to raise him as a baby and seen how that love changed him.

Dick whispered, “He’s a _kid_. And now he’s my kid. I can’t do that to him.”

Jason jammed his head into the headrest and scraped his eyes open again. His face was tense, but the skin around his eyes had softened. He rasped out, “You don’t gotta protect Bruce anymore. He’s not here, he can’t—”

“I’m trying to protect Dami.” Dick sucked in a rattling breath. “You and Tim might not think he needs it—none of us has ever really _been_ protected—but. He should be. He deserves it. I’m gonna give this to him, _I’m_ going to protect him.”

A loud silence, and then—He almost jumped when Jason dragged him into a hug, smashing Dick’s nose against his shoulder. His arms were like iron bands, scalding Dick’s skin until he adjusted. Relaxed. Let the heat of his brother’s body sink into him.

Jason murmured, “Okay. It’s your choice to tell or not tell, or whatever you wanna do. I’m sorry for pushing.”

Dick dug his fingers into Jason’s back and focused on the feeling of their ribcages expanding and contracting. He thanked the beats of Jason’s slow-marching heart. “It’s alright. It’s ‘cause you care.” Jason nodded, chin brushing Dick’s hair. “I love you, Jay.”

Jason scoffed, but Dick heard his pulse stutter. “You, too, buddy.” Jason squeezed once, hard enough to make the wings of his own shoulder blades creak, and then let Dick go. Jason got out of the car and stretched until his spine popped. Expression smoothed into dry apathy, he said, “No homo, though.”

A kinda-hysterical giggle escaped from Dick’s chest. “You’re literally bi.”

“And? So what, I can’t be homophobic to my big brother?”

Dick shook his head, let himself laugh, and followed his brother to the elevator.

-

They were greeted by the delicate scent of smoked salmon, the muted susurrus of the kitchen sink, and two bickering voices.

“Grayson!” The tiniest bat stomped over to the threshold and pointed back at Tim, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. “Tell Drake that he must either loan his camera to me or leave.”

“You _have_ a camera,” Tim groaned.

Damian whipped around to glare at him. “Yours is of higher quality.”

“Buy a better one, then.”

“I need your camera _now_.”

Jason turned to Dick, raised his eyebrows and his hands, and deftly stepped around Damian. His expression as he retreated to the kitchen said, _They’re your problem, Big Bird_.

A fond smile crept onto Dick’s face. He smothered it when Damian stared up at him with his flinty green eyes. “Whoa, whoa, Li’l D. Tim can’t leave just yet.”

“ _Why_.” If Dick called that a whine, he’d earn a dagger in the foot. Taking a calculated risk, he ruffled Damian’s baby-fine hair.

“’Cause I just got back and I gotta talk to him about something.” In his periphery, Tim perked up.

Damian swatted Dick’s hand away and did not pout. “What could be more important than our peace and quiet?”

 _Our_. Dick felt goofy and dizzy and tight-hearted whenever Damian acknowledged that he and Dick shared a home, that they’d become family. He smirked at Damian and said, “I need to tell him every embarrassing thing I said about you in therapy.”

Damian’s jaw dropped and then snapped shut. Tim choked on a snort and said, “I’m ready to hear it all, hit me.”

“ _I’ll_ hit you—”

Dick took advantage of Damian’s distraction to wrap his arms under Damian’s butt and heft him sideways in a fireman’s carry. He was so short that his legs barely dangled from Dick’s shoulder. He laughed as Damian squawked and squirmed, beating on Dick’s collarbone with little iron fists.

“Put me down!”

“Nah.”

“Grayson!”

Dick shrugged a little roughly, enough to rattle Damian’s head and push an _oof_ from his lungs, and said, “It’s either you let me carry you or you let me smother you with kisses.”

Tim cackled loudly enough to echo off the penthouse’s pristine white walls. Damian protested, “Why are those the only two options?”

“’Cause I missed you! C’mon, sit up properly.” He loosened his hold enough that Damian could wriggle upright and swing his legs over Dick’s shoulders. He dug his chin into Dick’s skull and muttered nonsense.

Tim padded over and bravely poked Damian’s foot. “So go on, share these embarrassing stories with the class.”

Dick flashed him a bright grin. “Hm, I dunno, I’m feeling kinda tired. Maybe I’ll be up for talking after a movie.”

“Aw, come on.”

Dick patted Tim’s head ( _his hair is still so fluffy_ ) and tweaked the apple of his cheek. “Ya gotta earn it. And don’t feel left out, Timmy, I told her embarrassing stuff about you, too.”

Tim scoffed and caught Damian’s ankle before his foot could sock him in the eye. “Like what?”

“Stuff. And old pictures.” Dick winked and relished the blood draining from Tim’s face.

Crowing victoriously, Damian tugged on Dick’s hair this side of too hard and pointed toward the living room. “Onward, Grayson.” He stiffened as something occurred to him. “Wait. Will Todd be joining us?”

“Yep,” Dick answered with an obnoxious pop. “And you’ll be happy about it.”

Damian spluttered and Tim asked, “Pray tell, why?”

“I’m gonna get him to _make his famous popcorn_ ,” Dick called with enough volume to carry to the kitchen. He heard a faint, “What the _fuck_ ever,” and considered that good enough.

He carried Damian to the living room, Tim trudging close behind, and refused to let him down when he sat on the sofa. “This is your perch, Dames. Deal with it.”

Damian drummed on Dick’s head. “Your shoulders will ache tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a me problem.” He gripped Damian’s calves and barely restrained himself from tickling the ditches of his knees.

Tim slumped sideways onto the plush leather ottoman, his legs hanging off the armrest. “What do you need my camera for, anyway?”

Damian rooted his hands in Dick’s curls and scratched his scalp with his sharp little nails. “An inane assignment. We’ve been tasked to compose a _scrapbook page_ ,” the derision in his voice leaked, goopy and noxious, onto Dick’s head, “to represent ‘the most important people in our lives.’ Quite the invasion of privacy.”

“So?”

Damian clicked his teeth. “ _So_ , I need better pictures of Grayson than my own camera can take.”

A star-dense ball of warmth swirled in Dick’s core and rose all the way to the back of his throat. He wanted to coo; he wanted to flip Damian around and hug him for hours; he wanted to drag Bruce out of his coffin and say, _See, I’m doing it better_. He wanted to show his mom and dad that he was on his way toward building the family they’d always wanted for him.

Damian didn’t seem to realize the impact of what he’d said, but Tim’s wrinkled brow and pinched nose smoothed into understanding as he watched his older brother.

“Yeah, fine,” Tim said softly. “You can borrow it.”

Dick wanted to hug him, too, but settled for relaxing into Damian’s aimless tugs on his hair, smiling at Tim, and beckoning, “Go on, you pick the movie.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to New Titans (1988) #57, where Dick actually goes to therapy and talks about Bruce. "Murmuration" is the collective noun for a group of starlings, which is a fact that I've always loved. Collective nouns for birds can be so poetic. In this case, I'm alluding both to that meaning (birds flock together!) and a "murmur," the softest way to speak. 
> 
> I should say that I'm writing these oneshots totally out of order based on what's interesting to me at the moment. I have ideas for the meat of Dick and Bruce's relationship that I might flesh out, in addition to everyone's reactions. Regardless, Dick Grayson's trauma lives in my head rent-free. 
> 
> Please pester me about Batman here or on Tumblr @ baitwonder!


End file.
